Category: Modern Poetry and Poetics

Rupert Brooke’s “The Soldier” opens with the following lines: “If I should die, think only this of me:/That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England.” Which of the following statements best describes these lines and Brooke’s poem as a whole ?

A. These lines and the poem as a whole use both the political concept of a nation and the spiritual concept of eternity to give meaning to soldiers’ deaths on the battlefield.
B. These lines and the poem as a whole are primarily concerned with the extension of Britain’s imperial power.
C. These lines and the poem as a whole seek to directly express the horrors of war.
D. These lines and the poem as a whole rely on assonance to magnify the critique of war expressed in the poem.

In the first lecture of his Modern Poetry course, what argument does Professor Langdon Hammer make about the relationship between the modern city and poetic modernism ?

A. Most modernist poets lived in large cities; therefore, they often used urban imagery in their poetry.
B. Many languages and many forms of language were used in large cities; modernist poets often treated language not as something given and natural but as a construct which they could manipulate.
C. Individuals often felt lost and alienated in large cities, and among poets this resulted in turning inward and focusing only on the world of one’s own imagination.
D. All of these answers

Why was World War II a defining event in the history of the 20th century ?

A. It brought unprecedented destruction and loss of life, thereby putting into question the entirecultural and political legacy of Western civilization.
B. It was followed by Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and by the entrenchment of the Soviet totalitarian system of rule.
C. It was followed by the Cold War, which affected international politics throughout the world.
D. All of these answers